Make them hear you

As the musical Ragtime nears its conclusion, Coalhouse Walker, Jr. has taken over banker J.P. Morgan’s elegant library where Coalhouse’s armed men are holding a white man hostage.

The story of Coalhouse opens with hope and love and a new car. The car is destroyed by white firefighters, his beloved Sarah is beaten to death by the Secret Service when she tries to plead his case for justice to a vice presidential candidate and Coalhouse goes on a murderous rampage against the firefighters who destroyed his car and his dream.

There is much else happening in the musical that dominated the 1998 Tony Awards, of course, but when we get to the library, there is a standoff with police. Booker T. Washington, a symbol of black accommodation, comes in to mediate and works out a deal. Coalhouse tells his men to let the white man leave and to change the world through the power of their words.

The song he sings - “Make Them Hear You” - could be an anthem for our moment. It is not only a plea for stories to be told but for those of us who are white to listen…to listen carefully.

Here are the words. And you can hear Brian Stokes Mitchell, who played the role of Coalhouse in the original production, sing it in this video at the Kennedy Center in 2019.

Go out and tell our story
Let it echo far and wide
Make them hear you
Make them hear you

How Justice was our battle
And how Justice was denied
Make them hear you
Make them hear you

And say to those who blame us
For the way we chose to fight,
That sometimes there are battles
That are more than black or white

And I could not put down my sword
When Justice was my right
Make them hear you

Go out and tell our story to your daughters and your sons
Make them hear you
Make them hear you

And tell them, "In our struggle,
We were not the only ones"
Make them hear you
Make them hear you

Your sword could be a sermon
Or the power of the pen
Teach every child to raise his voice
And then my brothers, then

Will justice be demanded by ten million righteous men
Make them hear you
When they hear you,

I'll be near you
Again

Today we are hearing a lot of the stories of struggles that go on, of justice denied, of justice still demanded. 

In the Hebrew scriptures, the prophet Habakkuk wrote of standing on a rampart, waiting to see how God might answer his complaint. And what was his complaint? He laid it out like this:

O Lord, how long shall I cry for help,
   and you will not listen?
Or cry to you ‘Violence!’
   and you will not save? 
Why do you make me see wrongdoing
   and look at trouble?
Destruction and violence are before me;
   strife and contention arise. 
So the law becomes slack
   and justice never prevails.
The wicked surround the righteous—
   therefore judgement comes forth perverted. 

So God answers the prophet:

Write the vision;
   make it plain on tablets,
   so that a runner may read it. 
For there is still a vision for the appointed time;
   it speaks of the end, and does not lie.
If it seems to tarry, wait for it;
   it will surely come, it will not delay. 

Here’s a rough translation: Make them hear you.

When some 10,000 people - many from Madison’s faith communities - gathered downtown last Sunday night to march in solidarity with the principle that Black Lives Matter, we heard some of the stories of people in our community. We heard ideas of ways we could act, some directed at reimagining what a police agency could be, some calling for economic development, some calling for respect for women, for youth. 

For folks with a religious bent, Rev. Dr. Marcus Allen, pastor at Mt. Zion Baptist Church and president of the African-American Council of Churches, set the tone for the march with a familiar verse from the prophet Micah: love justice, do kindness, walk humbly with your God. And the walk up State Street began.

“Ain’t gonna let nobody turn me around, turn me around, turn me around,” LaTanya Maymon from Christ the Solid Rock Church led the crowd in singing as the walk moved towards the state Capitol. 

The crowd was being heard. But the stories do not end.

There are two stories that I read this week that particularly touched me, a white guy who grew up in very white northeast Wisconsin and who has lived all of my adult life in pretty white Madison. 

One came from another life-long resident of Wisconsin, Devon Snyder. He starts with an incident in fifth grade in his home town of Fond du Lac. He ends with an incident this past February in Madison. He calls it “The never-ending timeline of racism.”

The second came from Isaiah McKinnon, who grew up in Detroit and served as its chief of police from 1993 to 1998. He wrote in the Detroit Free Press this past week about being beaten up by four police officers for no reason when he was 14, the bigotry and threats he faced later when he joined the force, even being pulled over for driving while black when he was the chief. 

Devon Snyder and Isaiah McKinnon and so many more are making us hear their stories. And when we hear them - if we really hear them - we are changed, bit by bit. And as we change, then we need to find ways to change the structures and the systems that created the injustices we hear about. 

When Mary learned that she was pregnant with Jesus, she sang about how God “scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts” and “brought the powerful down from their thrones and lifted up the lowly.”  And when Jesus spoke to the crowds on a mount overlooking the Sea of Galilee, he told them, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.” He said those who hear his words - and act on them - will be like those who build their house on a solid rock.

So we are called to hear the stories and to act on them.

Telling the stories is not always easy. There is a jolt at the end of Ragtime after Coalhouse sings that magnificent anthem. He leaves the elegant library with the promise of a peaceful surrender, only to be gunned down by the police waiting outside. Yet his story lives on, just as the stories of Martin Luther King and Medgar Evers and Fred Hampton and Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery and yes, George Floyd, live on.

Larry Fitzgerald has been a stellar wide receiver with the Arizona Cardinals football team since 2004. He grew up in Minneapolis and last Sunday, had an essay in the sports section of The New York Times about the pain he now sees in what he calls the city that “taught me about love.” 

He ends it this way, with a plea that we listen to one another, that we indeed hear the stories Coalhouse Walker sang about:

“George Floyd, in your final gasps for breath, we hear you.

“Breonna Taylor, in your besieged home, we hear you

“Ahmaud Arbery, as your footsteps pounded the ground, running for your life, we hear you.

“Victims of violence, poverty and injustice, we hear you.

“Communities and lives torn apart by riots, we hear you.

“People of privilege learning a better way, we hear you.

“Mothers and fathers of every race doing the best you can to teach your children to love and not hate, we hear you.

“May God give us all ears to hear so that the cries of the unheard are never again compelled to scream in desperation.”

May it be so.